Writing at The Dispatch, Kevin D. Williamson laments “adhocracy” in the form of technically legal executive action that skirts legislative prerogatives — namely, outgoing Oregon governor Kate Brown’s decision to commute the death sentences of the state’s 17 death row inmates (to life in prison without parole).

It’s not that Williamson supports the death penalty. Unlike most “conservative” commentators, he considers the outcome good. His complaint is that “executive unilateralism of the sort being practiced here by Gov. Brown is an invitation to chaos.”

He does, in a minor way, support his claim. After court decisions eviscerated the death penalty as practiced, Oregon’s voters remedied the situation with a constitutional amendment specifically providing for its narrower use, and the legislature has since tailored that use. “If Gov. Brown wants to change the laws of Oregon,” Williamson opines, “she should run for the state legislature.”

That’s where his argument begins to go off the rails.

Brown DID run for the state legislature — and served three terms each in the state’s House and Senate. All while, candidate surveys indicate, opposing the death penalty.

Brown became governor in 2015 upon  her predecessor’s resignation. Her first major executive action? Extending that predecessor’s moratorium on executions … after which she was elected to serve out the second half of his term, then re-elected to a full term in 2018.

Brown has consistently opposed the death penalty for at least three decades, during which time she has been elected to public office no fewer than seven times, including twice by the state’s entire electorate.

At no time during her tenure in public office has there been any doubt as to her position. The voters chose her either because of her positions or in spite of those positions recognizing that she might do something about those positions. They intentionally gave her access to various types and degrees of power. And her commutations of those death sentences fell within the constitutional limits of that power.

This, as protesters like to shout during their street demonstrations on various issues, is what democracy looks like.

The only “ad hoc” aspect I see here is that Brown didn’t handle the cases individually, in which case there might have been some complete pardons mixed in with the commutations.

But the outcome, as Williamson notes, is welcome, and there’s no “invitation to chaos” involved. The paperwork was correctly filled out. The relevant boxes were checked. Brown’s signatures on the commutations were preceded by multiple  voter ratifications of her privilege to wield the pen for that purpose.

The only real negative I see here is the long delay. Brown didn’t find the courage of her stated convictions until, term-limited, she headed for the exit. But better late than never.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

“Today,” US Senator Bernie Sanders (D-Masquerading-as-I — VT) said in a December 13 statement, “I withdrew from consideration by the U.S. Senate my War Powers Resolution after the Biden administration agreed to continue working with my office on ending the war in Yemen. Let me be clear. If we do not reach agreement, I will, along with my colleagues, bring this resolution back for a vote in the near future and do everything possible to end this horrific conflict.”

Promises, promises.

Every time Congress rattles its war powers saber against continuing US support for Saudi Arabia’s war on Yemen, presidents simultaneously threaten to veto such resolutions, and pretend they’re just about ready to end that support, if only Congress will back off. And it does.

Meanwhile, the war rolls merrily along, with the United Nations estimating more than 377,000 dead as of the end of last year, including the starvation deaths of 85,000 children between 2015 and 2018 alone.

Why? Because despite Joe Biden’s campaign pledge to treat Saudi Arabia’s regime as a “pariah” over everything from its involvement with the 9/11 hijackers to the murder of  exiled journalist Jamal Khashoggi, he remains as convinced as his predecessors that the US desperately needs the support and approval of Saudi terror kingpin … er, “Crown Prince” … Mohammed bin Salman.

Instead of the “pariah” treatment, MbS gets visits, fist bumps, and pleas to increase oil production so American consumers don’t have to pick up the tab for — and Biden doesn’t get the blame for — the price effects of US sanctions on Russian oil.

And US sanctions on Iranian oil.

And US sanctions on Venezuelan oil.

Do you detect a theme?  American politicians’ moonshine about “energy independence” is a perpetual riff on St. Augustine’s prayer: “Give me chastity and continence, but not yet.”

It’s not just about oil, though.

The Saudi regime is also one of the planet’s top military spenders, with much of its $50-75 billion “defense” budget buying US-made arms.

And since the US toppled Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-heavy regime in 2003 and installed a more Shia-friendly (read: Iran-friendly) government, Saudi Arabia has been the US’s proxy/counterweight  of choice in its 40-year war on Iran specifically and Shia power (in, for example, Syria and Lebanon) generally.

Decades of misguided US mideast policy have given MbS  a continuing grip on Washington’s dangly parts, with several ways to squeeze tightly should Joe Biden displease him in any way.

The problem with this particular intimate massage is that there’s really no prospect of a happy ending. Unwinding decades of would-be hegemony is GOING to hurt. But it has to happen sooner or later. Ending the slaughter in Yemen and telling MbS to go pound sand (he’s got a lot of that) would be a great start.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

“Incredibly dangerous.” “Disgusting.” “Divorced from reality.” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre finally put the Biden administration on record condemning nearly three years of  disastrously misguided  “public health” responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Oh, wait, no. Jean-Pierre (and her bosses) aren’t upset about more than one million American dead, ineffectual vaccines, a ravaged economy, the “public health” establishment’s complete abandonment of long-established principles and findings of science, and so forth.

The burrs under their fur are what they deem “personal attacks” on the premier public face of all those failures, Dr. Anthony Fauci, by new Chief Twit Elon Musk.

“My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci,” Musk tweeted on December 11. And, later, “[Fauci] lied to Congress and funded gain-of-function research that killed millions of people.”

Whether the research Fauci lied to Congress about actually resulted in the pandemic is certainly open to question (Occam’s Razor says the best bet is that COVID-19, like most viruses affecting humans, naturally made the jump from other animals). But he did lie about it. And that’s not all he’s lied about.

Anthony Fauci lies. He lies a lot. He lies constantly. He lies flagrantly. He lies like a rug, then often brags that he lied, then whines that noticing he’s lying is tantamount to attacking “science.”

He lied (after initially telling the truth) about the efficacy of masks in preventing the spread of viral infection (science doesn’t support the claim), then claimed the truth was a lie he’d told to avoid a public run on masks.

He lied about the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines in preventing both infection and transmission.

He gave one number for vaccination rates required to establish “herd immunity,” then jacked up that number and claimed he’d been lying before to encourage vaccine uptake.

He colluded with other “public health” officials to encourage “devastating takedowns” of real scientists whose real science disagreed with the politically motivated  pseudo-science he pushed from his perch atop the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, then lied and tried to shift the blame.

And, yes, he lied about the NIH/NIAID role in funding gain-of-function research in Wuhan.

The rate at which Anthony Fauci’s pants burst into flame probably keeps several clothing manufacturers solvent.  When humans return to the moon, they’ll be met by the tip of Fauci’s nose.

Anthony Fauci’s lies increased the damage done by, and the number of lives lost to, COVID-19.

Not being a lawyer, I don’t claim to know whether any of his lies constitute crimes which might be successfully prosecuted. But of one thing there can be no reasonable doubt whatsoever: His extensive, undeniable, and seemingly compulsive habit of lying is unworthy of defense from the White House, or from anywhere else.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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